Sunday, November 30, 2014

He's got secrets too. He's also part of several more secrets. Some of them are mine, some are his, and some connect us in a highly unlikely manner. He has given me a very precious child. I may pay the favour back, or at least, let him know about it one day. Or I may just decide to keep it mum. ;)

I have many secrets. They get more with the passing of time. I wish they also got a lot more interesting.

For example, this entire blog is a secret as I have not included it in my CV. I don't want the wrong person reading my musings, especially if that person is the key holder to a possible job. Then there are other secrets, which I don't write about even in this blog; only in my diary. And there are those secrets no-one knows about, and I will never write down.

Most of the time even those people who read my musings and have a relative background have no idea what I am talking about. I choose to write in a way that it is open to interpretation, in order to say what I want and avoid detection. I am pretty sure that the reason this blog exists is to read it and feel comforted by my own words and my own point of view. From this aspect, all humans are the same. We love that which is familiar.

Okay, let's share some of these secrets. See if I can shock some of my readers into stop reading me, thinking I have finally lost it.

My favourite author who also happens to belong to the First Ten (or maybe Eight or Twelve) is married to a woman who despises him, and she is a siren. Not metaphorically speaking. Literally siren, which means, winged woman who eats people kind of creature. Every time she smiles, she looks like she is about to bite a chunk of flesh off someone. Of course, he has no clue, and when she is around he smiles, a man in love. She always grimaces as if he disgusts her. Then again, she always grimaces as if she is either disgusted by the entirety of existence or she's about to lunge at some poor human and eat their face.

Another author I love has a son who aspires to be as successful an author as his father. The son hates his father and is very jealous of him, because deep down he knows he's not as good as his dad. The son has gone and made a deal with an entity for fame, and his books leave an aftertaste like licking the floors of a slaughterhouse. I am serious. It's an essence of rotting blood, fluids from entrails and shit combined. Of course, no-one seems to know it. Instead they pile awards on him, making me wonder about their taste and doubt my own sanity.

A few weeks ago my house was under magickal/ demonic attack. In the course of just few days, I had two dead cats, one possessed cat and a very sick dog. I had to actually exorcise the cat.

The crazy lady next door was under possession of a thought-form or entity. I could see that being looking at me from within her eyes. A similar entity resided inside my father before he died. I can tell apart those possessed by thought-forms or entities. They all have the same glassy, unfocused eyes. I wonder why other people don't see it when it's so clear and unsettling. Then once more I wonder if I am crazy.

Two of the people I hold closest to my heart see visions and spirits and other such. I sometimes wish those visions came with names of people, phone numbers and dates.

I have written a thank you speech in case I ever receive any kind of literary award. I even checked how long it is by keeping time. I hope I'll get to use it one day.

Now guess which one of these is a lie. Then guess again, because maybe I am pulling your leg, and they're all true, or all lies, or what I perceive to be real. And that is obviously debatable.

I am off to finish a book no-one knows about under a pseudonym no-one suspects. Ha ha.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014

Down went the desktop due to the recent thunderstorms, effectively crippling me. Oh, I do have an ancient laptop with missing keys and a busted battery, and that's what I am using now. It's just that I want to do other, more urgent things instead of writing at my blog, and the data I need is in the desktop. I'll settle for what I can, I guess.

About an hour ago we had two earthquakes, one after the other. I
decided that the best way to handle it was fill a bowl with Coco Pops and
milk, place it on my altar to be consecrated and eat it. Actually the
basic reason I placed it there was that there was no space anywhere
else. My bed is full of cats and stuff. I shouldn't have eaten Coco Pops,
because I had flossed and brushed my teeth before. But what the hell, we
don't get earthquakes every day.

So what happened in my desktop-free days?

My mother is sick with a cold. I told her that if she gives it to me, I will kill her. It will probably be the first cold I am aware of that ended up in death. ;)

I finished two books, both very pleasant.

I visited a friend.

Watched three episodes of the new series Constantine and the movie Dracula Untold. The second one was very nice.

I buried two deep frozen cats and one kitten.

I disassembled and thoroughly cleaned my calligraphy pens. It involved lots of water and ink and my fingers turning black, brown and blue. But now my pens are working like a charm again. Yay.

I wonder what magic ability of the mind helps us struggle on when, for all
we know, next week could bring about the earthquake that will bury us
all under a ton of rubble.

I really need to get the desktop going and finish with my current work.

I also need to continue this in my diary, because the rest of my banter is not fit for public consumption. It involves deep thoughts and people in various stages of undress rubbing against quasi-naked people. Or aliens for all I know. I have some very intriguing alien species in my mind. And no, they don't have tentacles.

My mother
phoned a few weeks ago, and she sounded purposeful but hesitant, like she had
finally worked up the courage to tell me something important. 'Honey,' she
said, her voice broken with concern. 'I want you to stop being a feminist. I
love you too much to see you turn into a terrorist'. As she went on about her
concerns, I quietly amused myself with the thought of coming home to a room
full of concerned faces and a big banner reading: INTERVENTION. Muffled
sniffles of my loved ones. 'We fear it's gone too far,' someone would say. 'You
need to stop being so conscientious of the social inequalities and hierarchies
of power that plague this world. Before it's too late.'

I've been a
feminist since before I knew there was a word for it, and it has always baffled
me how it was even possible for a person not to be. If feminism is the belief
that women are as human as men, that women should be able to own their bodies
and make choices about their lives, who could possibly disagree with it?

It seemed
so outrageously simple to me, and it confused and saddened me that so many men
and women who were so clearly aligned with my beliefs, not only refused to
identify as feminists, but out of some obscure understanding of feminism as a
grainy, black and white montage of women burning bras and chopping off their
husbands' dicks, went as far as condemning it as a destructive movement, or
dismissing it as an irritable fad that needed to cease. Why weren't these
people feminists? It was a question I just couldn't crack. Eventually, in the
midst of flipping the bird at a group of particularly rowdy cat callers, the
answer came to me: because it's easier not to be.

Feminism is
hard. Being a feminist isn't as simple as putting up your hand and saying that
you think women are humans too- though that's a start. Feminism is not a mere
political orientation; it's a process- a long, difficult, exhausting, and often
disheartening process of unlearning every problematic 'truth' one has
internalised over their life, about sex, gender and race. It involves a lot of
self-education and self-reflection, which requires initiative, and a very thick
skin.

A person who identifies as feminist never does so because
they've been taught that it's a swell thing to be, but rather the opposite-
they are feminist despite society's efforts to demonise it. You don't declare
yourself a feminist expecting a pat on the back; you do it knowing there'll be
backlash, knowing that your friend will roll her eyes every time you exhibit
even a trace of it, knowing you'll make yourself a leper in the eyes of your
cute-as-hell date, that as soon as you say the word he'll cringe away like it
comes with a side of herpes and a sixth toe.

We all exist in the thick of it; of rape culture, of slut
shaming, of glass ceilings, body shaming and the normalisation of humiliation
porn- and it takes a certain kind of person, a certain analytical mind, a
certain amount of open-mindedness and courage, to question a culture from
within it. It's incredibly hard to question what you know to be true. To locate
and then pick away at your own internalised misogyny, and to try to break down
how it came to form such a fundamental part of your understanding of gendered
identities. To sit there and think, 'So why do I think that wearing a short skirt legitimates rape? Why
do I think women's hormones make them inferior professionals? Why do I think
that women are bad at math? That sex is something masculine; what men enjoy and
women endure? Who told me that? And most importantly, why?'

I feel like being a feminist is a lot like having shards
of shattered glass in your body that you have to painstakingly remove one by
one. Some shards are hidden so deep, lodged so stubbornly that it may take you
years, or even a lifetime to locate, let alone remove. Unlearning internalised
misogyny is something you must do alone, and navigating the twisted labyrinths
of your own prejudices is not a happy pastime. The truth is that it hurts, so
much, to be a feminist, and to consume or be involved in feminist dialogue.

It is gut wrenching to learn about the 8-year-old Yemen
girl who died of sexual injuries on her wedding night to her 40 year old groom.
It is soul crushing to see the slut shaming and victim-blaming that followed
the brutal assault of actress Christy Mack, who is now in need of a facial
reconstruction after having her skull crushed in by an MMA fighter's vengeful
fist. It is infuriating to learn that sex education practitioners still pass
around chocolates around the classroom, to demonstrate how the more a woman is
touched, the 'dirtier' she becomes, the less fit she will be for male
consumption, and thus, the less she will be worth as a human being.

It's impossible to become immune to images and tales of
misogyny, and it's incredibly painful to have to seek out these images, to
follow stories of the shaming, abuse, rape and death of women, day after day,
to expose old wounds and create new ones, in the name of education. It is so,
so difficult, and nobody tells you that.

Feminism is not for the faint hearted. God, I wouldn't
wish it upon anybody. But alas, I believe in feminism like I believe the earth
is round, like I believe that burritos are delicious and that Mark Ruffalo is
beautiful. So for all of you poor bastards that have been cursed with the belief
that women are full human beings who deserve to live as they please, and feel
the need to label yourself with the dreaded F-word, my deepest condolences to
you.

If you feel like you're consuming or contributing to
feminist dialogue only to be filled with sadness and dread, hang in there. If
you feel like you're constantly defending your character against people who
deem feminism to be a pollutant of it, aren't we all? If you feel like you're a
little sammie swimming upstream, it's because you are. And you're a damn
soldier for it.

This is a convenient place for all those pieces of prose that are not short stories, and can be understood by more than one person to be confined in my diary. If you find yourselves annoyed or disappointed, please move on to another blog. Thank you!

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